Songfacts®:

• Lead guitarist Scott McMicken (from Express Night Out): "The idea behind that song was far more abstract or something. Toby (Leaman, bass) and I wrote the lyrics for that song together and the way it all went down - and we'd never done anything like this before - the concept was I had written that song and it's got its verse, and it's got its chorus, of course, and it's got its bridge, what I was doing was over the verse I had three different melodies.
  I had three different melodies for the same chord progression, so we decided that the way we would work it is in the first verse we'd have the first melody. In the second verse we'd have the first melody, with the addition of the second melody. In the third verse we'd have the first melody, the second melody and the addition of the third. And so it became this crossword puzzle-word game to write those lyrics because what we did is we wrote the first melody - it exists alone in the first verse at the top of the song - and then those lyrics repeat as that melody repeats again in the second, but the second melody is introduced and what we wanted to have happen - if this makes any sense - is as new lyrics and new melodies are introduced over previous melodies and previous lyrics, that the sentences should make sense on their own, but they combine to make a third sentence. Like one syllable exists in one line where there isn't a syllable in the previous line.
  For instance, the first melody's lyrics are: 'I'm doing time, I'm guilty' - we decided it'd be about this guy in jail - 'I'm doing time, I'm guilty for now,' so when the second line comes in it's, 'While doing time for now.' So the third sentence created out of those sentences at once is: 'When I'm doing time, I'm guilty for now.' I always hoped - it's cool that it sounds like a girl group - but I was hoping in some magical thing, especially in the third verse, what you would hear is actually lyrics that no particular person is singing, this combination of all."